London’s skyline

Tower power

London’s silhouette undergoes its biggest changes for half a century

BUILT when Sir Isaac Newton was discovering gravity, St Paul's Cathedral was London's tallest building for 250 years. With treasonous relish, this crown was seized in 1961 by the Empress State Building, a dumpy pile of concrete and glass, ignored by all but those unlucky enough to work near it. That decade saw architects prick the horizon with concrete monoliths, leaving a legacy of misplaced bravado. Now, as London's skyline undergoes its biggest changes in decades, some wonder if the city has learned from past mistakes.

On July 5th the Shard, Europe's tallest building (at 310 metres), will open on the south bank of the Thames near Tate Modern to much fanfare and not a little scorn. It will soon be joined by others. Across the river builders are at work on a tower nicknamed the “Walkie-Talkie”, or the “Pint”, due to be completed in 2014. Nearby, three other tall buildings are works in progress: 122 Leadenhall Street (the “Cheesegrater”), 100 Bishopsgate (too boxy to get a nickname) and the Bishopsgate Tower (the “Pinnacle” to developers, but the “Bandage” makes more sense). This comes on the heels of the Heron Tower, now the tallest in London's financial district, which opened last year. Farther east by the Olympic park is the Orbit, a new take on the Eiffel Tower, which combines fairground ride with corkscrew.

In commercial terms, building tall is often an act of hubris. The higher a building reaches, the more its floor-plan is consumed by structural reinforcements. Skyscrapers make economic sense where land is scarce, developers megalomaniacal and cash handy. But given the time it takes to build such things, the boom that inspires them often swings to bust once they are finished (builders completed the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings in 1930 and 1931; the Burj Khalifa in Dubai reached its lofty heights a year after Lehman Brothers came tumbling down). London's new crop of towers offer fresh evidence.

Ken Livingstone granted permission for these projects during his first term as mayor, when Britain's economy was booming. Plump finances at the turn of the 21st century nourished several grand schemes, such as the London Eye and the so-called “Gherkin”. But previous bouts of skyscraping had followed space-clearing disasters. St Paul's is but one of 51 churches built after the Great Fire of 1666; the tower blocks of the 1960s rose in the gaps created by the Luftwaffe during the second world war. So the city is now a crowded and strictly regulated place, its skyline preserved as if it were a sculpture park. Glimpses of St Paul's and the Houses of Parliament from nearby buildings have been protected for nearly a century, as have the views from several parks and hills. New buildings must bend to get out of the way, a design constraint that helps to explain their odd shapes—and nicknames.

The Walkie-Talkie has been squeezed around the waist to preserve lines of sight, making its upper floors bigger than those in the middle. One façade of the Cheesegrater leans over to avoid obstructing St Paul's. The Shard has more freedom. Leaping out of a low-rise neighbourhood, it is nestled against a squat brick building with the British urban essentials—a Starbucks, a newsagent, a tanning shop. The tower may be visible from miles around, but criss-crossing bridges, tunnels and railway tracks make it hard to get near its base. In theory the building will disgorge affluent office workers and tourists onto the streets below, perking up the area. In practice, many such schemes fail.

Some of these towers are pleasing to look at, and the Shard is majestic. They fit an international modernist aesthetic characterised by a concrete spine (to house lifts and services), steel ribs to support the floors and a skin of translucent glass adorned with bright chrome. They seem likely to age well, mainly because this look is already quite old. Mies van der Rohe produced the prototype in 1921. Both the Orbit and the Pinnacle are riffs on an idea sketched out in 1917 by Vladimir Tatlin for a monument to international communism. But some are considerably less comely. A new tower near St George Wharf in Vauxhall seems keen to rival its neighbour to become London's ugliest new building.

Tall buildings reflect the aspirations of their patrons. The Wren churches were paid for by guilds of merchants competing for prominence; the Gothic-revival spires of the 19th century by wealthy Anglicans who profited from industrialisation but hated the look of it. The skyline brutes of the 1960s and 1970s are courtesy of the government—which explains why they look like creatures of Leviathan. Now the city is peppered by petrotowers, tributes to its role as a financial entrepôt. They are the vision of globalisation: vast, impersonal and straining hard not to be brash.